Chris Brogan has talked quite a bit about outposts, various places on the web that are on the edges of his “ecosystem” on the web. Really it boils down to a web presence, where the main “trunk” (or home base as Chris puts it) is a specific site where the meat of all the content is. Outposts are generally social media sites, but I don’t think it has to be limited to that.

Now that my site redesign is finished and I’m purposefully blogging more, I plan on better utilizing my outposts to drive people right here to BradBlackman.com, which is where I want to serve up the meat of what I do.

Which is art. And talking about art.

There are a number of outposts already in place that I’ve been using for some time, that are just waiting to be better used:

• Twitter - I hang out here a lot. Blog post titles and links are automatically tweeted.
• Facebook - Blog post titles and links are automatically mentioned in status updates, and the feed pipes directly into Facebook’s Notes. I still need to set up a Fan page.
• this blog - This is my home base, my core.
• Google - My Google Profile
• Google Reader - This is where I read tons of blogs. It’s my favorite RSS feed reader so far.
• Google Buzz - I don’t think anybody has figured out how to leverage Buzz yet. I sure haven’t.
• Delicious - If I find something interesting on the Internet, usually in my RSS feed subscriptions, I will bookmark it here. Those bookmarks show up on Twitter and Facebook automatically.
• Flickr - This isn’t something I’ve really leveraged yet, but I need to.
• Ustream - I’ve put livestreamed videos of myself painting here. Need to do that again soon.
• LinkedIn - I confess that I hardly visit LinkedIn. How do you use it?
• Slideshare - So far, I have only one slide deck here. That’s probably because it’s the first presentation I’ve ever done since college.

These are all valuable tools for directing people here, great for connecting with people and starting conversations. If I have a great conversation with you on Twitter, or you get me thinking about something on your Facebook post, the next time I run into you at an art opening or a networking mixer (there are a lot of those in Nashville) I have the opportunity to further that conversation and make a real connection. You do, too.

Also, since it’s not all about me, it makes a great platform to not just talk about myself but it’s a perfect opportunity to share what I’ve found and learned and shine the spotlight on someone else. Everybody wins.

What conversations can we start?